Happy ever after

It started with a kiss. Which makes a change, since usually it pretty much ends with a kiss. You know that bit. Frog turns into prince, princess awakes from a deep slumber, active hero marries passive heroine and we all live happily ever after. Or we assume so, since nobody checks back for the wedding anniversary a few years later when our beautiful prince(ss) is run ragged by a brood of royal brats and our handsome prince(ss) is casting a roving eye elsewhere.

No, this tale was different. It started with a kiss. A fully consensual, yes-means-yes, joyous kiss. A kiss fuelled by cheap, potent cocktails and mutual lust. A kiss which, if we were counting, might have encompassed four of the seven deadly sins. Maybe that was where the deus ex machina decided to enter the mechanism.

After that kiss, outside a bar as a chill crept into a mild spring evening, things escalated fast. Pausing only to hail a cab, they rushed home. Her home? His home? Doesn’t really matter. This was generation rent, dwellers in bedsit land. No palaces here, just a single grungy room and a shared bathroom. You can use your imagination for the rest, you’re a grown-up. Draw on your own memories, select your seductive soundtrack of choice. Let’s just say that inhibitions weren’t the only things hastily discarded into a shabby heap on the bedroom floor.

According to canon, the fairytale ends here. Girl meets boy, they have eyes for nobody else and that first kiss is the start of the happy-ever-after.

But this is real life. Dawn brings headaches: left side is a simple hangover; right side deals with the more subtle pain of embarrassment, buyer’s remorse. In the cruel light of day, one slips away home. A WhatsApp message, distantly polite, is the only follow-up.

And yet, there is a happy-ever-after. This isn’t a tale of obsessive stalking, of unrequited desire or unintended consequence. Nor is it a tale of unlikely fate, two souls eventually seeing they are entwined in spite of it all. That deus is merciful. The pairing quietly parts, no recrimination. Years go by. One wild night lives on as a happy, nostalgic memory.

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This one was inspired by the unofficial Fucked-up Fairytales challenge currently doing the rounds. And I fancied tweaking the whole 'happy ever after' thing, since most fairy tale romances seem to have flakey foundations. Is it autobiographical? Gentlemen never tell.

Does it meet the brief? I guess we'll find out.

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This is probably a good place to mention a unicorn-obsessed NSFW entry from Thavien Yliaster. Spotting this on FB led me to the unofficial challenge, and got me thinking about some ideas.